Tuesday, 7 September 2010

What is the estimated total amount of memory use for the entire Internet? And by how much is it growing each year?Asked by: David Gardener

First off we must define what the Internet is, as it has become commonplace for the word ‘Internet’ to be used as a general term that encompasses both the Internet and the web. They are not the same thing. The Internet can easily be explained as a ‘network of networks’ (Investintech.com), with a hardware and software infrastructure, where data is sent in the form of packets using ‘the TCP/IP set of network protocols to reach billions of users’ (Investintech.com). ‘The Web, on the other hand, is a massive hypermedia database, a myriad collection of documents and other resources interconnected by hyperlinks’ (Investintech.com). It is a platform to explore the Internet (travelling through the networks to find the data you want on a computer or server) via a web browser. The web uses HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocols) to link files together, using HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to shape the experience, creating the websites that we have all become accustomed to. The definition between the Internet and the web is explained very well on the BBC series ‘Virtual Revolution’ in episode 1, Chapter 6 which can be viewed on their 3D documentary explorer or alternatively you could listen to US Senator Ted Stevens speech on Net Neutrality Bill, or its remix.

Tuesday, 24 August 2010

I have a new website! and a new blog where you will currently find all issues of ‘Out of the Question’ so far. I will be maintaining 'Adam is Above Average', but it will be taking on a new purpose as a showcase of my more experimental pieces. Hope to see you over at my new place.

Monday, 23 August 2010

Having numerous animal-lovers in my family, I have often heard about and accepted the concept of animal years, but never properly understood why or how it is calculated - so I was keen to investigate how the system works. Animal years, or ‘animal ages,’ are a system used by vets and pet owners to assign an age to an animal in comparison to a human’s life span. The well-known metric used for cats and dogs equates each year lived by an animal to seven years of human life, so for example when your dog or cat has lived for three years, it is said to be 21 years of age in human years.

Many find this system inaccurate, as noted by final year veterinary student at Glasgow University, Anna Beber.

‘Animal ages (e.g. for every year a dog is alive it is the equivalent of 7 human years) … [is] a kind of nice way to show that animals age much faster than humans, but it’s not accurate at all because when dogs and cats (and most other animals) develop, they mature really quickly in their first year.’

The speed at which dogs and cats mature in the first few years of their life is much quicker than that of a human. Most cats and dogs are considered adults by the age of 2, so with the 7-year system this would mean the animal was the equivalent of 14 human years, which is misleading. New systems have been created to solve this problem such as the Cat years scale at Purina.co.uk and the Dog scale at www.calculatorcat.com. However different breeds have different life expectancies, making it impossible to create an accurate scale.

Can an animal’s level of maturity ever be related to that of a human’s? I would say no, as a human develops in different ways to other animals. A one year old child my not be able to feed itself or chase a ball around the room, but its cognitive skills far out-weighs that of a young dog or cat. Comparatively, a seven-year-old child possesses abilities that animals can only have in fantasy films such as ‘Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore’.

The concept of ‘animal years’ is a loose comparatives system, as there ‘is no reliable scientific method for calculating exactly how old [a] cat [or dog] is in human years.’ (Purina.co.uk). Overall the system can be seen as a folk science and in fact should not be used for literal comparison. Human years are calculated by the passing of an earth rotation around the sun, and maturity accrues in humans at different times, based on environment and genetics. We have markers or milestones that create a system of maturity, from childhood to teens to adulthood, but these are essentially loose concepts, so relating them to another animal is even more tenuous. Vets use the animal year system to gain a better idea of where an animal is in its life cycle, using this to help understand what health problems could arise. Though the system is largely inaccurate, it helps to have this direct comparison so we, as humans, can relate to our furry friends.

Thursday, 19 August 2010

A few weeks ago I got the oppuntinity to volunteer at the CARIS summer play scheme. I was invited along by the amazing Gary Powell and spent the day leading a workshop with Roderick Mills and Camille Rousseu. The children were asked to create a creature by cutting up photocoped animals, people and objects that Roderick and Camille had provided. Then they took there creations on a journey to find their bed. It was an action packed day, including some concentrating, felt tip wielding toddlers.

There are some of the results of the day. I have snuck one of mine in there, but which one is it?